Our deceitful Republican Senators

With few exceptions the Republican Senate that we have right now in our country is made up of shameful and deceitful men and women. This includes the two from my home state of North Carolina. They are Senators Richard Burr and the one I picture here, Thom Tillis …

He is a perfect example of the word deceitful (“one who behaves in a dishonest way by making other people believe something that is not true.”)

It became very apparent this past Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday I received an Email from Senator Tillis urging us all to “remember our Fallen Heroes”. What a joke that was coming from his lips and I couldn't resist sending him this reply …

“Senator Tillis. You have got some gall to send out an email to honor our fallen heroes while you and your gutless buddies in the Senate stand firm AGAINST voting for an independent and HONEST look into the insurrection of January 6^th.”

The Republicans in both House and Senate know that if their lies are finally exposed it could mean the end of them politically so they choose self, ego and greed ahead of the needs of the people who voted for them.

Taking flight … a Stress Reduction Plan

Is your life full of stress? Do you find yourself gazing at the birds flying overhead and wishing you were up there too? Would you like to have your problems take wing? Well, that describes me. So, when I learned of this no-fail Stress Reduction plan that just takes a good imagination and the ability to count, I decided to try it.

Following instructions I settled back in a comfortable position, closed my eyes and slowly started to count ...all the time visualizing my stresses taking flight. I barely made it to 5 before I saw my auto insurance payment sprouting wings and drifting away.

Wow, I thought, this thing really works ! 6,7,8 and there went my credit card debt. Suddenly I was the one sprouting wings. I felt myself lifting high and I floated with ease and serenity. I was completely stress free, a blissful feeling. So I continued counting until I felt my wings dip and I knew I was being gently guided back to earth.

But wait … it was not ground that I touched down upon. It was an old pirate ship and I was being led to the plank! I could see the dark water roiling below me and I tried to stop counting but I couldn't. Suddenly a great weight pushed me off the edge and as I plunged to my certain death I wondered why I no longer had wings.

The strange thing was that I couldn't stop counting and suddenly, at number 401, I awoke with a jolt and found I was back in my own little room. “I'M ALIVE” I cried out, breathing a huge sigh of relief and suddenly all those life stresses that had plagued me before seemed mediocre. “I can handle anything that comes my way now”, I said to myself, “THIS COUNTING THING REALLY WORKS” and I bet it will work for you too !

An inspiring story

It all started two years ago with a NY Times story about an 8-year-old Nigerian refugee, known as Tani, who was living with his family in a homeless shelter in Manhattan. He had just returned from Saratoga Springs, NY, with a chess trophy “almost as big as he is”.  I don't usually think of chess masters as ADORABLE, but he sure fits the bill.

The teacher who ran the chess program at Tani's elementary school set up a GoFundMe account and that, linked with the NY Times story, really took off. The campaign greatly surpassed the initial goal, but the family has decided not to keep a cent of the $200,000 raised. Tani's parents, the Adewumis have decided that they will take out a 10 percent tithe and donate it to their church, which helped them while they were homeless, and the rest will be channeled through a new Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation to help African immigrants who are struggling in the United States the way they were.

Tani continues to climb the rating ladder, as he has recently become a National Master by scoring 4/4 points at the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship in Connecticut. In an NPR interview Tani explains how he views chess: “I say to myself that I never lose, that I only learn, because when you lose, you have to make a mistake to lose that game. So you learn from that mistake, and so you learn [overall]. So losing is the way of winning for yourself.”

Does it strike anyone how different is their approach to life in comparison to the white moneygrabbers that make up a large majority of our country? They would grab the money and run, all the time thinking like Trump and calling us 'SUCKERS” for not doing the same.

Thank you Tani, our broken country needs a huge infusion of families like yours. 

THEGOODOLDAYS.....LIDDLELAMZYDIVEY

 I had a musical awakening a few days ago. I realized that I haven’t really given the music of today a chance. My main complaint has been that I can't understand the words and it wasn't until I decided to compare it to the songs of my youth that the truth came out.

I decided to prove my theory about the “better music days” and this is just a small sampling of the songs that I remember from way back then. I had (conveniently) forgotten that the words could be pretty garbled up back then too. Here are just a few examples:

1.) “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey, a kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you? If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey, sing …mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

2.) “Oh, the flat foot floogie with a floy, floy…..yeah, yeah, yeah, byah, oh, baby! ….flat foot floogie with a floy, floy, ….floy, floy, floy, yeah! Send me on out there!”

And of course we can’t forget this classic by the Andrews Sisters:

3.) “Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit……..Now the Rawlson is a Swedish town, the rillerah is a stream, the brawla is the boy & girl, the Hut-Sut is their dream. Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah,… etc., etc. ”

‘nuff said…I guess you get the idea!

The “Grim Reaper”

Not only does Mitch McConnell (the Senate Minority leader) like being called “The Grim Reaper”, but he actually IS one ! He has proved over and over that the words fit him to a “T”. In a message on 10/23/2010 he wrote: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Luckily that didn't happen.

However, 4 years of Trump DID happen and it may be years (if ever) before we can overcome that deadly fiasco. The people of the United States legally and fairly chose Joe Biden as their President and we are just starting to see how that will work. Now McConnell on 5/5/2021 wrote this: "100% of my focus is on stopping this new administration." Wow, !

So, in other words he is saying that it is the only thing he will accept and it leaves absolutely no room for compromise.  The whole concept of our government is based on bipartisanship and President Biden is practically begging the Republican Senators to do just that. Unfortunately they are a sorry bunch of gutless elected officials who will completely take the country down rather than give an inch. It is a wonder that they can sleep at night and, in my opinion, that includes the people that vote for them 

KNOW YOUR MESS ...

 My son, Mark, in 1983 at age 24, wrote this ode to his Dad

“Know Your Mess”.

“My father’s workshop…a busy space,
But so many tools out of place.
Tools smeared by oil, others by grease,
Some should be labeled ‘rest in peace’.
Hammers hang longing to drive the spikes.
He leaves us room for broken bikes.

Slew of tiny screws, stack of wood,
Things he might use, things he never would.
My mother, his love, can’t understand
All of these things without a plan.
She brings ‘it’ up and he says “yes”,
But never has time to plan the mess.

He asks for a wrench, I hear of cost,
He always knows when they are lost.
Then he asks me for the pliers,
I think I saw them by the tires.
But he knows just where they are,
He had to look some, none too far.

It takes a man years to know his mess,
Where all his tools lie, more or less.
My father’s work shop, lots of space,
And every tool, he knows it’s place.”

PORTRAIT of a NEIGHBORHOOD… 1962

 My husband, 3 children and I were living on West 94th St. in NY City in 1962. Our apartment was on the 11^th floor and, although this was a reputable address, it changed very quickly when you turned the corner. The first building on the right was The Whitehall and our bedroom window looked right into it. To say it was low down and tawdry is being kind. It was a mess! I was also in a Writer's Workshop at the time so when the assignment was to write about a “Portrait of a Neighborhood” this rolled off my pen.

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PORTRAIT OF A 1962 NEIGHBORHOOD

To me, “off-Broadway” is not a theater production but a massive, out dated hotel for transients on New York City’s upper West side. Hanging from the marquee is a grimy cloth banner that proclaims this to be “THE WHITEHALL”.

All shades of humanity pass through the filth-infested hallways of this building just four doors from the respectability of West End Avenue.  Daily a handful of World War II vets wheel their chairs to the pavement. They sit deceptively still in the sunlight. Then a pedestrian walks by and they spiel off obscenities from mouths twisted with hatred.

A maroon convertible purrs to a stop in front of the hotel. Five scantily dressed girls and the driver, a strutting and jewelry encrusted black man, pile out of the car.  “Big Boy, you sure can peddle them white gals”, says one of the vets and they stand around cracking jokes until a police siren pierces the air. As if by osmosis, the group fades silently into the building and the street is deserted. 

Only the men remain, their faces closed as they watch the squad car approach. The police rush into the building and the men place bets on who they will pick up this time. They all lose.

It’s just a family quarrel and the police are still breaking it up as they drag the couple to the squad car. The man holds his arm, blood seeping through the dirty towel that he’s twisted around it. “She used a bottle on him”, say the men knowingly, and so it goes at THE WHITEHALL, the transient hotel where only vice, corruption and poverty find a permanent home.